[113] in linux-security and linux-alert archive
Re: "Find all the SUID programs." Fine. So which *should* be SUID?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Elias Levy)
Sat Mar 11 22:09:30 1995
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 18:39:43 -0800 (PST)
From: Elias Levy <elias@power.net>
To: linux-security@tarsier.cv.nrao.edu
In-Reply-To: <m0rnYXw-000EWrC@distrib.com>
Reply-To: linux-security@tarsier.cv.nrao.edu
On Sat, 11 Mar 1995, Andrew Cromarty wrote:
> 1. What's a good Linux-specific spec for file permissions, against which
> we can compare our "find" and "cops" output? I.e. what *should* be
> SUID, SGID, world-unreadable, etc.?
>
There is none. See below.
> 2. What's a better solution to Linux security specification? E.g. what would
> it take to build into Linux some facility (short of ACLs or capabilities)
> that specifies and monitors access permissions, rather than requiring the
> sysadmin to carry around complete knowledge of the entire system's security
> requirements in his/her head? (It probably would need to handle
> site-specific customizations too.) As one example, it would be
> straightforward to construct an expert system to manage Linux security,
> if we could simply codify the specification knowledge. In short, what
> would be better than "cops plus a these-files-should-be-SUID list"?
Yes an expert system would be nice. And it can be partially built. But
every linux system is diferent. You run sendmail, I run smail, and who know
what that other guy runs. The point is to create an expert system firts you
need to have a knowlege base to codify. Which puts the burden on the
distribution makers because they are the only ones that know what go into the
distrubution. And the database would be exclusive the that distribution.
Further more it would be violated once you install any software from the net.
So it would help but it would certanly not solve the problem.
elias@power.net (Elias Levy)
PowerNet, Inc.
